


My Last Breath

by Vanyel



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Because writing it all out would be No, Copious Song Lyrics, Death, EXPLICIT DEATH OKAY, Messing with souls, Other, There's a whole backstory to this in my head, Tried to imply bits and pieces of it, and memories, but the feeling's there, kind of, mercykill - Freeform, not as much as usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 14:56:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11106930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vanyel/pseuds/Vanyel
Summary: A final sacrifice.





	My Last Breath

It was always the strangest feeling. Being _wide_ , liquid, spread across the ground like an oil spill. Normally, Reaper reformed himself as quickly as he could, shuddering off the crawling feeling that came with wraithing into a less-than-humanoid form.

This time, he didn’t really have a choice. He could hear the wheeze of what was left of his lungs, struggling in the dust-choked air. One claw curled against the ground in futility.

Talon must have expected this could happen, Reaper mused in the haziness. They had kept the planting of the bombs secret from him even during the mission. One of them must have been watching him during the attack on the rebuilding Overwatch base.  
He had remembered who he was. And that made him a security risk.

“Oh, no...”

A voice. Soft, choked, disbelieving. The sound of small footsteps growing faster, closer.   
“No, no, no!”   
Reaper had to focus to turn his head, looking up at the figure kneeling next to the center of his smokey puddle.The bright white shone through the dust.   
Even with her wings gone and halo broken. Even with the handle of her shattered staff hanging from her belt. Even with blood and dirt spattering her uniform. Mercy still looked like an angel.   
“Gabriel...”   
His voice was a whisper, barely loud enough to cross the space between them. **“I’m afraid...you arrived too late...this time, doc.”** Reaper ignored her soft protest, feeling the faint touch of tears falling onto his mask. **“And I guess...there’s very little you can do...without your staff.”**

Mercy’s hand stroked over his mask, wiping away the dust. Reaper closed his eyes, feeling the pull of the darkness and letting himself go to whatever waited for him now.

“You are wrong.”

He opened his eyes to the sight of a glimmering, golden soul, the purest he’d ever seen. It glimmered with life. A delicate hand held it towards him. Her voice was so gentle.  
“Take this.”   
  
Reaper felt the edges of his form pulling in, curling up into the air like curious feelers. One hand came up, reaching for Mercy’s slumping form, trying to push her and the soul away from himself.   
**“Angela,”** he whispered, feeling a deep fear settling in his chest for the first time in years. **“No...”**   
Mercy’s head dropped, and she slowly fell into his arms.

 **“NO!”**   
The soul touched his chest, and like a tide, the smoke surged around them. It flared with a crimson light, flowing into the soul and lighting the scene with a deep orange glow. Reaper could feel the strength seeping from the body in his arms into himself, sitting up and holding onto her tightly, trying to fight his power. The motion swung Mercy’s form back, wings flaring with one last flash of golden feathers that slowly dulled to white, falling into the darkness gathered over the ground.

Reaper stood, holding her in his arms. She really was as light as a feather. All the old jokes they had made about it - her standing on his shoulder to look down on Reinhardt, him lifting her out of his spot on the couch - seemed now like they never had gotten at the core of the feeling. Even limp like this, Angela hardly weighed a thing.

Some part of him, some desperate remnant of something he thought had been destroyed long ago, still thought he could save her, or find someone who could. The touch of a heartbeat inside of him told Reaper that the soul had not been instantly swallowed down like they normally were, turned into raw power. Hers was still intact. There might be time. There HAD to be time.  
The rest of him knew better.   
He was Death. Once he got a hold of someone, of their soul, there was no saving them.

Quietly, Reaper turned into smoke, staying just solid enough to hold Mercy against himself as he ghosted away from the settling rubble. He avoided any signs of life. Both Overwatch and Talon would turn their guns on him now, if he knew anything about how they worked. And he did. Far too well.

Finally, he slowed down, shifting back to solid form and ducking into a ruined bunker at the edge of the blast radius. Footsteps in the dust and the scent of fresh blood showed this area had already been cleaned out after the explosion. He could rest here.

Unwilling to set down his cargo, Reaper turned around and sat down against a broken wall, sliding his back against the rubble and wishing he could feel the scrape of it. He shifted Mercy in his arms. The clawed glove faded from a hand, which rose to touch, cold scars tracing over her face.

The color had hardly dimmed from her cheeks, and she looked like she was just sleeping. She was still warm. Reaper could feel the same warmth inside of him. He felt alive.

Curling in, Reaper pulled off his mask with one hand, setting it aside. He rested his forehead against Mercy’s and closed his eyes, drifting.

 **“I’m so sorry.”** A whisper in the night.

//

“Gabriel. Gabriel? Can you hear me? I know you hear me, sleepyhead.”

The gentle voice pulled him from his reverie. Turning, he looked into Angela’s eyes, seeing the small smile light up her face.  
“Heh. You always were so confused upon just waking up, weren’t you?” Angela teased lightly, ignoring the sputtered babble as Gabriel pulled her tight, feeling her in his arms. She wrapped her arms around him in turn, hugging softly. “Don’t get yourself all worked up over this. I’m dead.” A quiet sigh. “We both know this. You can hold onto me as tight as you want to, love, but you know I can’t stay long.”   
Gabriel pulled back in confusion, looking her over.   
“But...but...Angela, how-”   
“You decided to slow down, for once.” A soft chuckle, Angela pulling back enough to meet his eyes once more. “I knew what I was doing when I handed you my soul. You trying to put it back has slowed your body’s absorption of it, and since I was aware of my soul on such a level at my last breath, I...left you something.”

She gestured with one hand, and the world disappeared into whiteness. A few soft beams of light appeared, shining and twisting into orbs that hovered in the air a short distance away. They flickered, as if something inside was moving.

“My memories. _Our_ memories.”

Gently, disbelieving, Gabriel reached out towards them. One orb floated closer into his palm, shifting to display a scene from a lifetime ago.  
“This...this is the first time we met. From your eyes.” His voice was quiet and low, watching himself walk into the field of view. “...I really needed a haircut.”

Angela smiled, lifting his chin and waving once more. Suddenly there were orbs everywhere. Filling up to the impossible white horizon, twinkling like stars.

“I saved them all, Gabriel.” She leaned against his chest, closing her eyes and letting all the orbs except the one in his hand fade away. The world dimmed lightly. “All my thoughts of you. All the time we shared, and the time apart. I kept them safe, inside myself.”

One hand curled gently against his heart. “And now, they are safe inside of you. I give them to you. They cannot make you forget who you are ever again.”

Gabriel felt his throat close, too many words to be said. They all seemed flat, flimsy, in the face of...this. “Angela, I...I’m sorry-”

She placed a finger on his lips, shushing him.

“You don’t have to apologize, Gabriel,” she said quietly. “I didn’t make this space to hear that from you. All I wanted to say is I love you, and I’m not afraid. I’d long outlived my time, and this way at least one of us makes it out of there with the truth. I chose my last life to save, and I would not have chosen anyone else.”

Thoroughly chastened, Gabriel simply pulled Angela closer against his chest. He felt the slow, steady thrum of her heartbeat. Too slow. Fading.

“Angela.” His voice broke. “I love you.”

Angela smiled against his shoulder, one hand coming up to cup his cheek. “I know, Gabriel. I know. And when the time comes, you will know where to find me again.”

She leaned up, pressing her lips against his softly.

“Goodbye.”

//

When Reaper woke, he was crying. The tears burned against his skin, and tasted of salt.

Carefully, he tipped the figure of Mercy up, propped up in his arms like she was lounging in a sunchair, rather than against the shoulders of Death. One hand curled softly against her cheek, gazing at the face of what was once the woman he loved. It was cold, even to his touch, and Reaper felt the finality of it sink in.

He’d fallen asleep in her memories, absorbing the last of her soul.  
_  
_ _She's not there. No one's there. This is just...just another corpse._  
  
The remnants of his heart curled up at the thought as he picked up his mask.

  
//

  
Overwatch had retreated to the tertiary extraction point after finding the first two compromised by Talon agents, licking its wounds and running through what was left of their defenses. The explosion had scattered them, and they couldn't be sure that there weren't more of their people still picking their way out of the rubble.   
  
Several sights trained on the figure approaching from the darkness, visible only because of a strip of white bobbing some feet off the ground, growing larger and clearer into the shape of-   
  
"Angela!" Winston dashed forward, stopping as the form carrying her stepped into the light. Reaper seemed unfazed by the guns aimed at his impassive mask. "What have you done to her?" His tone cut through the crowd, silencing everyone.   
  
Reaper looked down at the body, then back up at the group. His voice was uncharacteristically gentle, the rasp muted even as it cut through the stillness.   
**"Bury her on the eastern hill."** Next to the lilies, where she could watch the sun rise. Like she used to.   
He held Mercy out, and the group looked at themselves confused, before Winston slowly lifted her from his arms. The wraith looked over them, giving a tense nod.   
  
And then Reaper swirled into smoke, disappearing into the fading shadows as the sun crept over the horizon. As he glanced back up at the sky, he felt...almost a warmth come around him, like the memory of gentle arms, and he could swear that he saw a glimmer of wings.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who read/helped with this! The original concept came from ufficiosulretro's beautiful comic http://ufficiosulretro.tumblr.com/post/158408516027/mercykill-comic-for-my-mercykill-queen-en123-who , mixed with ideas that came to me while listening to the Evanescence song that gave this work its name. I hope you enjoyed! Or cried. Or enjoyed crying.


End file.
